This might sound peculiar, and it freaks out my wife each time: right after I get out of bed, I take a nice, 4-degrees Celsius cold shower. Then I have breakfast, take a look at my e-mails and the news, and then start working.
I’m surrounded by musicians, therefore I’m surrounded by music of all kinds. It’s easier to say what I don’t like that much: jazz and world music. Anything else I’m fine with.
I’ve been living in and among books decades, so this would be quite a long list. Or I could tell you what I consider the most significant pieces of the 20th century or the most outstanding books in Hungarian literature. I usually read several books at once. Currently, I have Jung, Oravecz (Hungarian author) and a manuscript by Vilmos Csaplár (Hungarian author) on my agenda. But there is another tower of books beside my bed. So I don’t have a single favourite. Instead I’d say that I have a lot of re-discovered favourites. At the moment these are Sándor Tar, Oravecz, Ádám Bodor, or Ferenc Szijj (Hungarian authors). I’m discovering them all for the second time. As I read them again, I perceive new colours as the texts reveal themselves to me again.
We are going to Florida in the near future, to hold a course at a school. So let’s say that’s my current favourite.
There’s been a radical change over the past few weeks. It used to be complicated: my wife is a vegetarian, which would have meant having to cook two different meals, so we used to always order something, or eat out, not eat at all. OK, just kidding. But now I’ve been on a vegetarian “probation period” for a couple weeks. So we’ve started to take cooking more seriously. Maybe to make it easier for me to stick to it and not to get bored of it. And of course (or not of course), it’s usually my wife who cooks.
Almost solely the Internet. The only paper I am subscribed to is “ÉS” (“Life and Literature” – a weekly Hungarian newspaper about literature and politics).
Facebook and the Internet. After all, the Internet is a giant magazine.
Hoodies. Then you don’t need a scarf or a hat.
Stilettos. I guess. But who knows. We usually have big Halloween parties; then anything’s possible.
Always the one I am writing at the moment. A creature in the making is always the one that needs the most care.
And for the ones that have been released and started “their own lives”, I would point out “Nincs alvás!” (“No Sleep!”), which can be considered a professional success, while “Pompásan buszozunk!” (“What Fun We have on This Coach Ride!”) was very popular among readers.
With Socrates, and with my father when he was twenty.
My son. After he was born, gradually everything changed around me and inside of me as well. On an existential level, I guess he was the one who has had the greatest influence on me. In a more profane sense, I could mention Dixi (János Gémes, Hungarian artist) from the 80’s, or Miklós Erdély (Hungarian artist). And again, of course, this would be quite a long list, too, if I tried to recall all the writers who have ever had a major influence on me either through their works or their personalities.
I could talk about a lot of things. However, the first thing that came to my mind right now is travelling. Maybe because it played an important role in my life. Spend some time abroad if you can, whether for a short time or a longer stay. It’s definitely worth it. You can gain so many new experiences, and it can improve your relationship towards yourself and the people around you a great deal.
There are a few – not many – that I gave up on. These are generally shorter texts which could not develop to their fullness or could not find their proper form. I wrote a play about Latinovits (a Hungarian actor) in the early 90’s. It never made it to a première. The script even got lost. But I found it recently, and as I looked over it, I realized that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing after all that it was never produced. It’s better for all of us this way.